Until Next Time Miss Tonks
by Elph
Summary: A one shot fic centred around the reception at Lily and James's Wedding, from each of the marauders perspective. Nymphadora Tonks gets lost and Remus retrieves her.


Everything is perfect. Have I ever been this happy? If I have, I don't remember it. My head feels as light as a helium filled balloon, and had the love of my life not been holding my arm tightly, I'd have probably floated upwards and got stuck to the ceiling by now.

Lily. The love of my life. How I love to hear those words in my head. And as of today, not just my love, but my wife.

I look sideways and catch her eye. She beams at me. Oh how beautiful she is! I am the luckiest man on earth.

Truly I have never been so happy.

She laughs, probably at the look on my face, and nods towards the dance floor. My best friends are there, entertaining the bridesmaids. I chuckle lightly at the sight. Sirius has one tiny girl stood on feet, and is twirling her round the dance-floor. Remus and Peter are watching, laughing.

"I'm going to save those poor bridesmaids, okay?" I say to Lily, whose beautiful emerald green eyes, so full of mirth, are also watching my friends' antics.

"Sure." She smiles, with a little laugh, her eyes lingering around the room, before resting on me. "Go show them your best moves," her smile breaks into a grin, and I grin back, and wrap my arms around her waist. I plant a kiss on her sweet lips, before smiling again, and moving away across the room, towards my three friends.

The wizarding world is at war with the darkest, most dangerous wizard of the world as we know it. And I have never been so happy, in my entire life, as I am today.

* * *

Sirius is looking like a complete fool, and it is absolutely hilarious. Of course it's sweet because the bridesmaid barely comes up to his waist, the pair of them are laughing their heads off and it looks absolutely adorable.

I look round to see James at my shoulder. I grin at him, and he grins back, the pair of us silently sharing the joke. He looks like he's about to float up to the ceiling.

The song slows to a halt, and me and James look back towards Sirius and the bridesmaid, laughing as she tugs him on the arm, begging him for another dance. He looks far too tired; James and I can see that, but it's rather fun to watch him suffer. Although I think perhaps he's suffered enough already. James can see that too, and steps forwards.

"Would you mind if I take this dance?" he asks the bridesmaid, extending his hand. She giggles and accepts it. I smile and turn my head to where Lily is standing, smiling. She catches my eye and her grin widens.

I turn my attention back towards Sirius, who is bent double, panting.

"Enjoyed yourself?" I ask, smiling at him pleasantly.

"Hell, yes!" He replied in between breaths, and he and I laugh. "James doesn't, realise what he's got, coming to him, that girl, has, endless, energy. Where's Remus?"

I look around. I hadn't noticed him disappear. Remus always had a habit of fading into the backdrop.

"Haven't a clue," I reply eventually, "I suppose he hasn't gone far."

Sirius nods, and stands up straight. "Well I'm off to get some rum and trifle. And don't forget Pete, when James runs out of energy it'll be your turn on the dance-floor!"

I manage to pull off some sort of laugh and groan at the same time.

* * *

I am helping myself to a handful of little cheesy biscuits in the shapes of tiny fish and playing card suits at the buffet, when Sirius bounces up beside me. I haven't a clue how he does this after all that dancing, I guess he's just very quick at regaining energy.

"There you are Moony!! We thought you'd wandered off!" He says.

"I did wander off," I find the need to point out, "I wandered off to get some of these little cheesy biscuits in the shapes of tiny fish and playing card suits." I uncurl my hand to show him. He laughs and moves up the table towards the pudding. I follow, eating the biscuits as I go.

"Trying to skive off dancing with the bridesmaids aren't you?" he says slyly.

I laugh heartily. "I can't dance for toffee!" Sirius laughs too.

"Aah, but can you dance for trifle?" He gestures towards the humongous bowl that dominates the pudding section of the table.

"Hmm…" I muse, and leave it at that. I've decided not to give him the benefit of an answer; I just grin and eat another little cheesy biscuit.

"Always with the savouries aren't you Moony? Well I really don't understand how you can choose little cheesy biscuits over this trifle!"

I look at the enormous trifle into which Sirius is currently plunging a big silver serving spoon, and shrug.

"I like trifle," I mutter offhand to him, as the serving spoon surfaces from the bowl and dumps something a lot larger than a serving into Sirius's bowl.

"Then why don't you have some?" Sirius asks, taking another bowl from the stack and thrusting it under my nose. I push it away, with a simple explanation:

"Because right now I want little cheesy biscuits."

Upon mention of this, I look down into my palm to find that my supply of said cheesy biscuits has run out. So I wander back down the length of the table, leaving Sirius quite distracted, to drown his something larger than a serving of rum trifle in the sherry sauce. Something is telling me that this was not the sherry sauce's intended destination when the waiters put it out on the table, but I suppose if Sirius is happy to mix and match, I can leave him to it.

I find the bowl of little cheesy biscuits where I left it, near the cheese, crackers, and other such titbits. I take a grape from among the cheese, and examine it for bits of stilton before popping it in my mouth. Why they must mix the grapes among the cheese I will never understand. And why it matters to me I will never understand either. I must be crazy.

I take another handful of cheesy biscuits, (there are very few left now,) and look back around for Sirius.

I can't see him anywhere. He must have wandered off.

I look back at the buffet table, and am surprised to find a small arm reaching up and taking a tiny fistful of those precious little cheesy biscuits out of the bowl. I watch on, shocked.

A small girl with lurid green hair turns round to look at me, jumps, and spills her biscuits all over the floor, before swiftly following their progress towards the floor. She lands on the carpet with a soft thump, her frilly yellow dress spilling all about her, clashing horribly with her hair, but only for a moment, because the next moment, what was lurid green hair is now a warm brown. She stares up at me, and then she grins. A big, wide, happy, friendly grin. I grin back, and hold out my hand.

"Are you okay?" I ask in a big gentle voice, the kind of voice an adult uses when speaking to a small child he doesn't know.

"Mmyes," she mumbles back, accepting my helping hand, but jumping to her feet in the kind of way that makes me thing she didn't really need any help getting up. I think she must be around four or five years old, but I could be mistaken. She looks a little different every time I look at her.

I look around for some sort of chaperone, but this small child appears to be all alone. I kneel down in front of her, and smile at her.

"Are your Mummy or Daddy here?" I ask gently. She looks at me thoughtfully.

"Mmyes," she says again, "Mummy's here." She grins at me. "But I lost her."

"You lost her did you?" I smile back, going along with the game. I love children.

"Mmyes."

"Well maybe we should go find Mummy, yes?"

She pauses, her big blue eyes affixed upon mine. "Yes." She replies confidently.

I smile, and she smiles too. Then, quite surprisingly, she reaches out her arm towards me, and opens out her hand for me to see. Two small cheesy biscuits lie there, having survived the fall. One is in the shape of an ace of spades, the other a heart.

"You can have one," she informs me brightly.

"Thank you," I reply, trying not to laugh. She's the sweetest little girl I ever saw. I take the one in the shape of the spade, and eat it. She eats the heart shaped one, then looks up at my face and laughs.

"Now let's go find Mummy," she says, in almost a commanding tone. I have no reason to object, so I let her take my hand and lead me across the room.

"Do you have any idea where she is?" I ask.

"Mmnope," she tells me. I smile. She smiles back.

"What's your name then?" I ask her. Her hand, greasy from clutching the cheesy biscuits, clings on to mine, but her eyes show a strong independence, as if she enjoys clinging to me but has no need to. She gives me that thoughtful look again.

"My name's Dora. What's yours?" she stops walking, and looks up at me expectantly.

"My name?" I ask with a grin. She nods, grinning along with me. "My name's Remus."

Dora giggles. "Hi Remus."

I chuckle right back at her. "Hi Dora."

She smiles, and then pulls my hand in a completely different direction to where we were first heading.

"Aren't we looking for mummy?" I ask.

"I want to dance," she tells me simply.

Inwardly I groan. I really honestly cannot dance. But then I look over towards the dance-floor to where James and Lily are twirling in each others arms, and a little further over, to where Peter is dancing very awkwardly with a very energetic bridesmaid, and it doesn't matter so much. The Bride and Groom will be taking up the attention of anyone watching the dancing, and my fellow Usher is also making a fool of himself with the children. I can deal with that.

Dora leads me on to the dance floor, and jumps on to my feet. The force with which she lets gravity throw her upon me hurts a little, but she isn't heavy. The song is an up beat one and I swing her round happily, throwing her into the air and spinning her round and around, and trying not to notice that her eyes keep changing colour. She is, ecstatic, laughing and giggling along with me, no doubt enjoying herself immensely. And I must say I am too.

* * *

I swallow down the last of my trifle and allow the bowl to be whisked away by a passing waitress. I don't think the sherry sauce was a good idea.

I look around for someone I know, and immediately see Andromeda, looking frantic.

"What's up Andy?" I ask idly, sidling up to her. Maybe I'm just tired from the dancing, or maybe there was more rum in the trifle than I thought.

"Oh thank Merlin, Sirius! I've lost Nymphadora!"

I wonder vaguely how she can keep using Dora's full name like that, and look around my immediate area.

"Oh. I can't see her. Maybe she's gone off looking like the wallpaper. Again."

"Sirius!! This is serious." Her eyes tell me that the joke I was about to make is not a good idea, because this is serious. But I am sorely tempted.

"Okay okay I'll keep my eyes open." I say, still feeling rather vague.

"You don't look like your keeping your eyes open!" she demands, although I don't think she's entirely serious.

"Sorry," I smile at her, "It's been a long day. What time is it?"

"It's seven thirty. And why ask me, you can check your own watch!"

I look down at what is quite definitely a watch on my hand, "Oh yes," I say, noticing that it is indeed seven thirty.

Andy sighs. "What are we going to do with you?"

But I don't quite hear her, because I've spotted Dora, on the dance-floor, most likely giving Remus a hard time. But they both look like their enjoying themselves.

"There she is," I tell Andy, pointing Dora out. This is hard because they're moving pretty fast.

"Oh thank Merlin," she says, the relief in her voice unmistakable. "But who's that man she's with?" her voice is suddenly suspicious, protective.

"Oh don't worry," I tell her dismissively, "That's just my friend Remus. He looks pretty tired, we ought to rescue him."

Andy laughs, "It's time Dora and I were going too. I told Ted we'd be home by eight."

"Okay," I say, smiling.

So the pair of us wander over to the dance floor, where Remus and Dora are dancing away quite happily. We wait at the side until the song finishes, then Andy rushes forwards and grabs Dora.

"You had me so worried Dora!" she exclaims, "Don't do this again! Okay?"

"I'm sorry mummy," mumbles Dora. Remus is watching, a little smile on his face. I meet his eyes and smile back. Andy turns to him.

"Thank you for looking after her," she tells him. He smiles and shrugs a little.

"It's not a problem," he says. James and Lily have stopped dancing and have wandered over. Andy turns to them and smiles.

"It's been a lovely wedding you two," she beams, "I'm sorry Ted couldn't make it."

"It's okay. I'm glad you enjoyed yourselves," replies Lily brightly.

"Not as much as you too I bet." Andy says slyly. James and Lily simply beam in reply. "Go on then, where for the honeymoon?"

"France," grins James, his hands stuffed in his pockets. Me and Remus exchange a grin.

Andy nods with a smile, "North France?" James nods, and Andy smiles and nods again. "It's lovely there."

James nods again, and Lily laughs.

"Now then Miss Tonks," says Andromeda, scooping up her daughter, who has escaped and is trying to drag Remus back to the dance floor. "It's time to go home!"

Dora groans, but then wraps her arms around my neck and plants a sloppy kiss on my cheek.

"Bye bye Sirius," she mumbles. She then jumps from her mothers arms, and grabs Remus around the knees, off balancing him and nearly tripping him up. He laughs and hugs her back.

"Bye bye Remus," she tells his crotch.

"Until next time Miss Tonks," Remus says back. He grins down at her, and she grins right back up at him.


End file.
